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Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study
OBJECTIVE: A subset of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) smoke cannabis to relieve symptoms including spasticity and pain. Recent evidence suggests that smoking cannabis further impairs cognition in people with MS and is linked to impaired functional brain changes. No such association, however,...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4473732/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26106538 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.04.006 |
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author | Romero, Kristoffer Pavisian, Bennis Staines, William R. Feinstein, Anthony |
author_facet | Romero, Kristoffer Pavisian, Bennis Staines, William R. Feinstein, Anthony |
author_sort | Romero, Kristoffer |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVE: A subset of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) smoke cannabis to relieve symptoms including spasticity and pain. Recent evidence suggests that smoking cannabis further impairs cognition in people with MS and is linked to impaired functional brain changes. No such association, however, has been reported between cannabis use and structural brain changes, hence the focus of the present study. METHODS: Twenty patients with MS who smoke cannabis for symptom relief, and 19 matched non-cannabis-smoking MS patients were given the Brief Repeatable Neuropsychological Battery and structural MRI scans. Images were segmented into gray matter and white matter, and subsequently analysed with Partial Least Squares, a data-driven multivariate technique that explores brain–behaviour associations. RESULTS: In both groups, the Partial Least Squares analysis yielded significant correlations between cognitive scores and both gray matter (33% variance, p < .0001) and white matter (17% variance, p < .05) volume. Gray matter volume in the thalamus, basal ganglia, medial temporal, and medial prefrontal regions, and white matter volume in the fornix correlated with cognitive deficits. Crucially, the analysis indicated that brain volume reductions were associated with more extensive cognitive impairment in the cannabis versus the non-cannabis MS group. INTERPRETATION: These results suggest that cannabis use in MS results in more widespread cognitive deficits, which correlate with tissue volume in subcortical, medial temporal, and prefrontal regions. These are the first findings demonstrating an association between cannabis use, cognitive impairment and structural brain changes in MS patients. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4473732 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44737322015-06-23 Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study Romero, Kristoffer Pavisian, Bennis Staines, William R. Feinstein, Anthony Neuroimage Clin Article OBJECTIVE: A subset of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) smoke cannabis to relieve symptoms including spasticity and pain. Recent evidence suggests that smoking cannabis further impairs cognition in people with MS and is linked to impaired functional brain changes. No such association, however, has been reported between cannabis use and structural brain changes, hence the focus of the present study. METHODS: Twenty patients with MS who smoke cannabis for symptom relief, and 19 matched non-cannabis-smoking MS patients were given the Brief Repeatable Neuropsychological Battery and structural MRI scans. Images were segmented into gray matter and white matter, and subsequently analysed with Partial Least Squares, a data-driven multivariate technique that explores brain–behaviour associations. RESULTS: In both groups, the Partial Least Squares analysis yielded significant correlations between cognitive scores and both gray matter (33% variance, p < .0001) and white matter (17% variance, p < .05) volume. Gray matter volume in the thalamus, basal ganglia, medial temporal, and medial prefrontal regions, and white matter volume in the fornix correlated with cognitive deficits. Crucially, the analysis indicated that brain volume reductions were associated with more extensive cognitive impairment in the cannabis versus the non-cannabis MS group. INTERPRETATION: These results suggest that cannabis use in MS results in more widespread cognitive deficits, which correlate with tissue volume in subcortical, medial temporal, and prefrontal regions. These are the first findings demonstrating an association between cannabis use, cognitive impairment and structural brain changes in MS patients. Elsevier 2015-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4473732/ /pubmed/26106538 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.04.006 Text en © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Romero, Kristoffer Pavisian, Bennis Staines, William R. Feinstein, Anthony Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title | Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title_full | Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title_fullStr | Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title_full_unstemmed | Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title_short | Multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: A structural MRI study |
title_sort | multiple sclerosis, cannabis, and cognition: a structural mri study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4473732/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26106538 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.04.006 |
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